Karl had been really busy with his physiotherapy coming back home always depressed and not in the mood for anything. Even his cigarettes breaks became dull. So I pretended to be also busy the few times I saw him walking towards the parking lot and checking my balcony for company.
Ruby on the other side was anything but depressed. For some reason, obviously a cat reason, she thought that I was there for one and only mission, to entertain her. Oddly she has this idea most of the time but lately she has become more determined and catwise stubborn and while I consider myself the king of my desk chair she’s insisting to use it as a bed for quick naps every time I dare stand and move out of the room.
Another mystery in the long queues of mysteries that surrounds me lately. How the hell does she know when I’m planning to get up and move out of the room and how the hell she manages to go past me without me seeing her and jump to my chair? To be or not to be, that’s kind of mystery.
So, here it is me king of the chair and current prince of the sofa sitting in the sitting room and sigh deeply while letting morning paper lay crumpled on the floor. Whilst trying with my very poor Swedish and Google translate to make sense of the headlines, I could hear in my mind Lucas laughing and Karl yelling … a big pointy nose!
Truth said I had barely managed to understand the one main headline and that with a lot of help from what I had ready early this morning online. There were no news with the robberies in the centre and police had absolutely no information about them. Yet it seems that another one hit, and it was another public services office with a lot of computers and gadgets.
Still it was not these robberies that stark screamed in my mind. The robbery in the house in the edge of the town the same time the bare feet girl run in the dark. With all the laugh and mockery we never talked about that nether with Karl or with Lucas making me wandering if it was intentional. The not talking to me.
Ugh, I hate it when I get paranoid.
“Robberies, Ruby,” I muttered looking at Ruby. She returned the look in a very Clint Eastwood way, ‘are you talking to me, punk?’
Jesus I’m losing it. Was my next thought. I started talking to the cat. Retirement is far less peaceful than anticipated and life in the isolation of the small town suburbs doesn’t help much. However my mind was buzzing with questions and the whole robbery returned. At least the parts Lucas felt like telling us and the parts Karl didn’t investigate.
“Motive and opportunity,” I murmured still looking at Ruby lying still on her cushion. “From what Karl said, if I remember well, a group of individuals with masks and knives invaded a house near here, early in the evening and while the family was inside. They demanded money and jewels threatening their lives. It seems that father and son decided to do something in answer so they attacked the invaders and they wounded one of them while they were running out of the house surprised by the reaction.” Ruby didn’t move.
“And it was Karl a few days later that said that the victim wasn’t exactly well-liked. Greedy, rude some might say. That exactly how Karl had put it,” and I was sure that his reference to some might say that some was himself and his queen wife.
If I remember well they had some works made in their apartment so perhaps it was carpenter works and the victim of the robbery the man who had come to do it. That will also excuse the ‘greedy’ sketching of the man.
“I think that needs further investigation from my part. What do you think Ruby?” I asked and Ruby purred, seemingly pleased with the prospect of further investigation, her emerald eyes gleaming with a hint of mischief.
Perhaps retirement isn’t so dull after all.
Read all the chapters in order, HERE!
Cul-de-sac, Växjö! 